For many years, reporters and photographers at The Shepherdstown Chronicle have been on the scene covering events of all kinds and striving to cover the life and times of our communities. Another large part of our profession, however, is taking photographs.

Recently, we introduced CU, a community photo sharing Web site, to the online version of our newspaper. It has grown to be what is likely the largest collection of photos of the Shepherdstown area anywhere on the Web. CU.shepherdstownchronicle.com currently has thousands of photos of area people, events and locations shot by both our staffers and members of our communities.

And now, we are excited to announce an upgrade to our CU site that will vastly improve the reader experience. Some of the many improvements include:

Improved Search capabilities

Ability to share galleries and photos on Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter

Improved My CU section

Ability to easily add Tags and Captions

Improved Mobile program

Ability to Rate galleries and photos

Improved Navigation and Viewing options

This upgrade to CU, slated to go online Wednesday, Aug. 5, is part of The Shepherdstown Chronicle’s continuing efforts to deliver the most comprehensive local news information available anywhere on the Web.

“CU has been a resounding success since we launched it. The new additions to the site will allow us to continue to provide our readers with the most comprehensive collection of area photos available anywhere,” said Chronicle publisher Craig Bartoldson.

Not yet registered on CU? It’s easy and free! You can either log on to www.shepherdstownchronicle.com and click on the CU link, or go directly to the CU site. Registered users can post photos of their family, church, school, service organizations or themselves. And there’s no limit to how many pictures or galleries you can post.

When visiting CU.shepherdstownchronicle.com you will see two sections, We CU and You CU.

The You CU section contains photos that the community has uploaded. One of the best features of CU is that it connects people in our area communities with each other, and with loved ones far away. The people you care about no matter where they are in the world can view your photos immediately.

The We CU section is comprised of photo galleries shot by the newspaper staff. These photos can be purchased, online through the CU site, on a wide variety of products and in many different sizes. Among the products available are: create your own sports posters, mouse pads, puzzles, coffee mugs, magnets, sports balls, regular prints and many more.

“We are very proud to be able to offer CU to our readers,” Bartoldson said. “We know that CU will continue to be a great way for people to network and interact with each other by sharing photos. Plus, we will be able to showcase hundreds of staff photos that might otherwise never get to be enjoyed or published.”

The Chronicle and its sister paper, The Journal in Martinsburg, have 41,870 photographs on their CU sites. More than 20,100 of those photographs are from local events, while CU users have uploaded some 21,600 images.